♡ A Heart's a Heavy Burden ♡

After much thought and consideration, I have decided that I will be remaking this blog entirely. I already have the blog (mostly) set up with a brand new url, so if you'd like to continue following me, give this post a like and I will follow you from it! I haven't felt right here in a long time, and this is honestly the change I needed, I'm already super excited to be writing Chrissy over on the new blog!

After much thought and consideration, I have decided that I will be remaking this blog entirely. I already have the blog (mostly) set up with a brand new url, so if you'd like to continue following me, give this post a like and I will follow you from it! I haven't felt right here in a long time, and this is honestly the change I needed, I'm already super excited to be writing Chrissy over on the new blog!

♤  ⸻ At this point, Two has zoned out. It isn't even that they aren't making good points, but Doctor Brenner has raised him to think that theorising is only good for the hypothesising stage. Anything beyond that, guesses are not welcome.

What does it matter what you think if you cannot prove it, 002? That makes sense to me, I guess.

Only when she addresses him directly does he phase back into reality— and if he was provoked before, he's damn well ANNOYED now.

❛ You talk as if I haven't considered all of this, 'n' you better fuckin' stop if you know what's good for you. ❜ After all, if there's anybody who's attuned to near-apocalyptic scenarios, it's the boy who was enlisted in the SECRET MILITARY from when he was fourteen. That's what he tells himself anyway; because if he doesn't, he'll lose himself to the nerves that Papa has taught him to banish. Being familiar with a warzone is not going to help as much as he wants it to. The only thing truly familiar is the PANDEMONIUM.

Even so, he adjusts quickly. He'll be fine once he's been out there a while.

His distrusting eyes sweep the room before they land on Henry. He looks so pathetic, his face seized by a PLEADING quality— and god knows why it weakens his resolve, makes the hate on his face dissipate like steam.

☾⋆ ⸻ Her mouth opens as though she's ready to rebuke him in some way, to tell him that he can't frighten her as easily as he thinks he can. Had she run across him before all of this? Yeah, his threats and short temper might have caused her to quiver in fear, but after all she's seen and been through since the trio hit the road, all he manages is a wobble, her mouth closing instead of saying something which would only fan the flames of his annoyance with her.

Chrissy can feel Henry's responses as he stands mere inches away from her. The thick swallow, the clenching and unclenching of his jaw as he bites back whatever it is he wants or needs to say. Like her, he's likely surmised that they need to tread carefully if they have any hope of convincing him to leave with them. Unlike her, though, he's going through something all his own.

Henry has told her bits and pieces concerning his time in the lab, enough for her to understand, but not enough that his fears she'd turn her back on him would come to fruition. However, just from those snippets alone she can determine that this is how he could have ended up if he hadn't broken free when he did.

Alone at the end of the world and seriously pissed off about it.

❝ The truth of the matter is... you don't know that we won't lie to you or screw you over in some way. That's kinda how trust works. It's a leap of faith, a chance you take in order to let it be earned. ❞ She offers a shrug before continuing. ❝ I can tell you until I'm blue in the face that you can trust us, but the fact remains that you don't know me, you don't know us, and so there's nothing I can say to make you think otherwise. Yeah, Henry isn't the doctor's biggest fan, and because of what he's told me, neither am I. But I'm not about to abandon his brother now that I know you're here. I won't leave you behind like the doctor did. ❞

☾⋆ ⸻ She knows that he tries his best, and it can't be easy being a single parent and working full-time hours when all he likely wants to do is stay at home and raise his little girl. It's why she's so keen to help out, to lighten the load where possible. Beavis has always been good to her, always made her feel welcome and never treated her like she's filled with airs and graces.

♤  ⸻ Two stares at her plainly as she speaks, unmoved by her emotive tone. It isn't fair of him ( though he doesn't realise this, given the conditions in which he was raised ) but he thinks that if she's weak enough to go mad because the world changed— a process that would very well have HAPPENED ANYWAY— then perhaps it would be a mercy for her to die sooner rather than later. She was never going to make it if that's all it takes.

❛ Well that's fuckin' stupid. But hey, you lying to yourself affects nobody but you. Your survival's not my concern, ❜ he says passively, pointedly ignoring Henry's look of disapproval.

❛ Nope, I cleared the area and then got this guy down myself. Killed him, then examined him. He was way outta reach so I knew I'd find nothing of substance anyway, but I still checked. He was clean. No bite, no scratch, no nothin'. I don't know what to make of it. It's not airborne, otherwise I'd be fucked. No spores were on the corpse— ❜ Something he only knows to check for based on a radio communication with Doctor Brenner himself, before he'd gone entirely offline. ❛ So what? A dead body just naturally rises now that everything's gone to shit? ❜

❛ Perhaps it is airborne, ❜ Henry says pensively, arms folded loosely across his middle, ❛ maybe it simply doesn't affect a living host. But we can all potentially be carriers. It only becomes active when we die. ❜

Two shrugs his shoulders, ❛ Suppose it kinda makes sense. I guess the why doesn't matter anyway. Point is: just killing a motherfucker isn't enough any more. You've now gotta kill everyone twice. ❜

Chrissy's question provokes him, though he doesn't understand why immediately. Only upon reflection does he realise that she's echoing some of his darkest thoughts. Now that Brenner hasn't thought to contact him for several weeks, the worry has inevitably set in. Papa? Are you okay? Please tell me you didn't get bit. If you got bit, this world is fucked. You're the only one smart enough to come up with a cure for this shit.

☾⋆ ⸻ Maybe Two is right? Maybe lying to herself is what is going to get her killed sooner rather than later. She's thought about it, thought how her being alive is a burden to Eddie and Henry, especially Henry. He's so concerned with keeping all the ugliness away from her that he hasn't considered, or perhaps doesn't want to consider it, that she'd be better off dead. That they both would be better off is she weren't here to hold them back.

They'd never let it happen, though. Neither of them would forgive themselves if something happened to her that they could have prevented.

Henry is quick to jump in with a thought she'd already had after Two had finished giving the details of his investigation of the corpse. If there were no bites or scratches, no spores or other signs of infection... then it had to be airborne, right? ❝ Well... from experience, we know the only way to take them down is by damaging the head. If it were a living host... maybe the same rule applies? If the brain is already too damaged, reanimation shouldn't occur, right? ❞ Sometimes, Chrissy could be pretty insightful. It wasn't often, but every now and then her mind connected the dots in a timely fashion.

❝ You're on some sort of self contained power grid, right? ❞ She asks him, looking around at all the electronics and lights that are still going strong. ❝ What happens when it inevitably gives up? Self contained or no, it has to draw power from somewhere, it has to be maintained... there's no one left to do that, all the power plants aren't manned any more so they're not doing their jobs... ❞

Whether the reaction be anger or sadness.

𝚂𝙲𝙰𝚁𝙴𝙳𝙽𝙾𝚃𝚂𝙲𝙰𝚁𝚈 is an indie canon-divergent, mostly headcanon based Chrissy Cunningham of Netflix’s Stranger Things.                                    🇳​🇴​🇹​ 🇦​🇫​🇫​🇮​🇱​🇮​🇦​🇹​🇪​🇩​ 🇼​🇮​🇹​🇭​ 🇹​🇭​🇪​ 🇸​🇹​ 🇷​🇵​🇨​

Exploring themes of: parental abuse and neglect, learning to take back control, discovering true love for oneself, trusting in others, leaps of faith, breaking social constructs, finding freedom without shackles and discarding crowns that were never sought.

Resurrected by Lulu (30+ She/Her) Minors DNI

with birdie perched on his hip, only wearing a fresh diaper haphazardly put on her, beavis opens the door to find chrissy waiting on his porch. for a moment, he wonders why she’s here when he didn’t ask her to babysit until he remembers he promised to pay her after school.

☾⋆ ⸻ It was always chaos in the house, and she could hear the latest edition of it from the other side of the door. Not that Chrissy minded, she liked the chaos, liked that everything was loud and nothing was ever in the same place. It felt like a home, a real home. When he opens the door to her, Birdie sat upon his hip, she greets him with a big smile.

She doesn't like asking him for money, she knows things are tight.

❝ Pigeons actually eat rocks. ❞ Jeff responds before really thinking about it, before that gripping fear of awkwardness sets in. Pigeons eat rocks, hi, I’m Jeff by the way. Horrible first impression to make on CHRISSY CUNNINGHAM of all people. ❝ They don’t have teeth so they eat tiny rocks and keep them in their gastrointestinal tract to grind the actual food they eat. You know, seeds and other hard stuff. Dinosaurs did it too. ❞

Dinosaur factoid provided in hopes she would think he liked dinosaurs instead of birds. There’s something SLIGHTLY LESS EMBARRASSING about a guy who retained a few facts from a previous paleontological phase, he thinks. In truth he had spent hours at the library last summer researching the biology and ecology of bird species commonly found in Indiana, spurned on by guilt after his cat destroyed a robin’s nest.

☾⋆ ⸻ ❝ Wait, seriously? ❞ Chrissy turns to look at the owner of the voice that provided her with said information. Had he not? Well, she would have likely come to the conclusion that the reason the bird was pecking at the rock was because its eyes were sitting more on the side of its head as opposed to the front. Then again, it is a prey animal, and their eyes tend to be further apart, right? She visibly shakes her head, uncertain that she's recalling that piece of information correctly or not.

⸸  ⸻ ❛ Hah. Such is the curse of living in this community. People here don't KNOW how to be quiet. ❜

And as if to prove his point, Two walks by with a load of wood in his arms, boots thunking along their makeshift pathways with unapologetic fervour. 'Fuck you, priss' he calls, clean and simple as he walks around a corner and disappears from view.

Henry scoffs with gentle laughter, shaking his head as he crosses the wooden walkways and heads towards one of the barns. With no livestock for miles, they've repurposed it into a 'garage' of sorts. At the very least, it keeps rust from clinging to the vehicle courtesy of the cold winter months. Just as well, for the only vehicle they still have to their name is Eddie's trusty old van.

☾⋆ ⸻ People had always liked to gossip, even before the world ended people would meet up to do just that. Chrissy used to think it was because they had nothing better to do with their lives, or maybe it helped them feel connected with the person they were spending time with. Now, gossip was perhaps one of those things that kept everyone sane, gave them something else to think about instead of... well, the horrors that lay outside of their walls.

A wave and a smile is offered to Two as he walks past them, carrying a supply of wood that will no doubt be used once the sun has gone down. According to Henry, they were in the final days of January, so that meant they had another couple of months of the nights being bitterly cold. ❝ Are you saying you asked Peter to get fuel for this? ❞ She asks him this as they head over to where Eddie's trusty old van is parked up, curiosity growing in her as she climbs into the passenger seat.

❝ You know that little tidbit has just made me more curious about where you're taking me, right? ❞ Her seatbelt is secured in place. There's no other cars on the road like there used to be, but they still need to be safe regardless.

☾⋆ ⸻ There were a lot of reasons as to why he was her ex, the one she just gave him was somewhere on the list, not way down on it, but not quite near the top, either; the varying degrees of severity changed almost daily at this point, though she was slowly starting to pull herself out of that cycle and move on. Not onto someone else, that part of moving on hadn't even crossed her mind, but the bit where she doesn't think about all the hurt and upset he caused her? That part was just on the horizon.

♤  ⸻ Two regards her impassively, seemingly unmoved by the prospect. He's nothing if not a REALIST, and the chances of mankind returning to the way it was before after all of this damage, at least to him, is extremely low.

❛ Would it? ❜ he asks, grey eyes fixed relentlessly on hers. Papa taught him never to underestimate his enemies, that overconfidence was often the first step to losing, and so he isn't quite bold enough to assume that this girl is STUPID. Nevertheless, he wonders if she possesses more naivete than this new world affords. ❛ You know this shit is WORLDWIDE, right? And that even if it wasn't, America is fuckin' huge. Put it into perspective: there's roughly, what... ❜ Eyes briefly roll skyward, as if he's trying to recall something. ❛ ...let's just say 340 MILLION PEOPLE HERE, roughly? Do you think that many people are dead yet? Of course not. Too soon. People are still holding out hope. Hell, the lucky ones are probably still holed up in their houses. But give it time? More 'n' more people are gonna die. It won't all be from these things neither. It'll be accidents, or starvation 'n' dehydration, or the living killing each other. But we'll all join 'em, I saw it. A little ways from here? There's a guy hanging from a tree, obvious suicide. He's too high up for the freaks to reach him, yet he is one anyways. They're gonna grow and grow in number indefinitely. And let me guess— you've already experienced HOARDS, yeah? You felt overwhelmed, didn't you? You RAN? ❜

Two lets the question linger for a moment before getting up, walking over to a different desk and pulling one of its drawers open. It's probably foolish to give some of this information away, but his brother's presence, while personally unwelcome, soothes some of his suspicion. At the very least, Henry's goody-two-shoes persona ensures that he keeps TRUSTWORTHY company. Besides, does it matter? They're all going to die eventually.

He returns to them with a small folder in his possession, flipping it open as he reclaims his perch atop the desk. The paper's covered in messy Russian scrawl.

☾⋆ ⸻ Of course she's aware this is world wide. Before the TV stations went down and the News was no longer able to broadcast, they were being shown images of England, China, Russia, all manner of different countries falling victim to the same outbreak. No one knew how it was spreading so fast on home turf, let alone how it had gotten overseas. Did anyone even know where the point of origin was? Who the unfortunate soul to be dubbed 'patient zero' was? If they did, no one had a chance to tell them, and that information was likely to be lost.

❝ Maybe you're right. Maybe it is stupid of me to hope that things could go back to normal, but right now? I need to believe that. I need to believe that we can overcome this, that we can start rebuilding what we've lost. It won't be over night, it could take years and years for everything to go back to normal, but I need to believe it otherwise I'm going to go mad! ❞ She's being honest, even if her honesty is making her appear weak and stupid. Part of her knows, way deep down, that this is it for them, that their lives will now be spent running, hiding, and scavenging until injury, sickness, starvation or a whole other bunch of stuff finally takes them out, but she's not ready to face that reality, at least not all at once.

One thing Two does say, once he's retrieved his folder containing who knows what -it isn't written in English, and even if it was she wouldn't be able to read all of it from where she's standing- kind of information inside that shouldn't be for the general public to see, is that he saw a man that had decided to check out on his own terms, and he still turned into one of those things. So far, they'd known that scratches and bites transmitted the infection, but if this man wasn't bitten, then— ❝ How is it spreading? The infection? Are you sure this person wasn't bitten? Scratched, anything? ❞ It's clear she's worried about this new piece of information, and who can blame her? If any of them were to die in their sleep, they could easily kill those closest to them.

❝ Through the hideous darkness, it lurches, driven by death itself Only the satisfaction of slaughter will cause it to return to to the darkness from which it came - ❞

Horror multimuse written by Silver ft. muses from DEAD BY DAYLIGHT, STRANGER THINGS, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, SCREAM, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE & MORE